Feb 2009: International Skype Conference (MP3 File 50MB)
Participants:
Trevor, NSW T
Michael, Melbourne M
Paul, USA P
Leigh, USA L
John, Darwin J
Gotha, Gawa Elcho Island G
Helen, Melbourne H
Geoff, USA G
Mystery voice MV
T Well there’s me, there’s Gotha Gawa, there’s John Greatorex on his landline,
there is Susan (Star), Paul (Dourish), John Greatorex.
L It’s Leigh.
T Sorry, Leigh. And then there’s Helen and you and I’ve also got my son Hugh connected but it’s only his computer so I can take a few screen grabs of what comes up on the screen.
L Great
M Okay, so are you there Paul?
P I am, yes.
M Good, and are you there Leigh?
L I am.
M Hello Gotha.
G Hello.
M Can you hear me Gotha?
G Yes.
M Good, okay can you hear us John?
J Yes, hear you loud and clear.
M Can anybody see Trevor
G no
L? No, I can’t see you.
J? … (inaudible).
? No.
J? I can see Trevor clearly down the bottom.
M Trevor, should we be able to see you?
T I’m not sure, I’ll keep playing around with it.
M Okay.
J Michael, Trevor’s … I can see Trevor down the bottom and he’s labeled as ‘host’.
M Okay.
T Michael, do you need to see my video image?
M No I don’t need to see it. Okay, let me run through everybody. We’ve got Trevor who’s in New South Wales who’s organising the conference. We’ve got Gotha who’s an Aboriginal Yolŋu elder who’s in a place called Gäwa which is up at the top of an island in Arnhem Land. We’ve got John who’s in Darwin. We’ve got Leigh who’s in California and waiting for Geoff who might be available soon. We’ve got Paul, we’ve got Helen and me down here in Melbourne and we’ve got Hugh’s computer on, Hugh is Trevor’s son and I think that computer is just set there so that Trevor can take some screen shots. Can I just ask if everybody is happy if Trevor makes a sound recording of what we’re talking about?
L Yes.
H Yes.
M Are you happy Paul?
P Yes.
M Okay and you’d be happy Gotha?
G Yo.
M That’s good. Trevor is going to just make a recording of the sound because what I hope we can do is get the people, Helen and Leigh and Paul, just to talk for a minute or two about what they are thinking about the program, maybe about the website, maybe about things that they would like to know and talk about, and we’d like to make a recording of them talking, because we did a recording of the Yolŋu from the consultancy, Gotha and Yiŋiya and other people, Garŋgulkpuy talking about the project. Now we’d like to see if the others are happy to talk for just a minute or two about their idea of the project.
L Helen, would you like to go first?
H Do you want to start that immediately Michael?
M Yeah, I’d like to start that immediately if that’s possible. Are you all hooked up Trevor for the recording?
T Yes, it’s all happening.
H Okay, I’ll go first. I’ve been reading the booklet that Michael sent of the Yolŋu statements and one of the things that occurred to me, I was quite taken by the sense in which the Yolŋu teachers feel themselves to be empowered by being on the land, that the becoming one with their place empowers them
0:05:00 as teachers; that they’re not sort of cut off at the knees, the way they feel in the classroom in Darwin. And so I would like to know more about how Yolŋu understand that sense of empowerment, what are some of the concepts and terms they talk about that, and one of the things that occurred to me is this term ‘märr’ which Michael and I have talked about and Michael sent me a reading, it was something that emerged as soon as Yolŋu started talking to balanda about knowing and knowledge. And so there’s a nice little philosophical puzzle in there. And then I wonder, how is the technology going to empower that empowerment or is the technology going to disempower that empowerment, that enhancement that comes from being in place; and we talked a bit about that when we were in Geoff’s office at the end of last year. So that’s one of the issues that I’m really interested in, the way in which the technological and the material and the social connections and even the sorts of texts that we produce, how are they connecting up with the extra power that comes from being in place? So we need to think about that power and how we talk about it, and think about the ways in which technologies both connect and separate. So that’s my interest.
T Trevor here. Geoffrey’s just come on line, I’ll just connect him in. hello Geoffrey?
L We’re sharing a machine right here in the other room.
G Yes I am.
T Hi Geoffrey, I’m Trevor, I’m organising the meeting. There’s a whole lot of other people here already. There’s Guthadjaka (Gotha) in Elcho Island, there’s John Greatorex at CDU, there’s Leigh close to you, there’s Paul Dourish, and Helen and Michael in Melbourne. So back over to you, Michael.
M Thanks Trevor. Are you there, John?
J Yep.
M Are you still there, Gotha?
G Yow.
M Okay. And hi, Geoff.
G Hi, Michael.
M Geoff, Helen just talked for a moment about her ideas about the project. I just wanted to make sure that Gotha was able to hear that and could understand a bit about what Helen was saying about land and marr and knowledge. Did you hear what Helen had to say, Gotha?
G Yeah, a little bit.
M A little bit, okay. She was talking about land and power and Yolŋu knowledge and märr and wants to know more about that. I hope that when we all meet together in Darwin we will be able to talk more about that.
L Yes, I agree. That’s a really big interest to me too.
M Are you there John?
J Yeah. If I might just say a little bit to gutharra? Gutharra yan nhakun ŋayi lakaraŋal, nhaliy ŋayiny dhu dhiyaŋ technology guŋga’yun ŋunhi yolŋu ga wäŋaŋur nhina. Ga marŋgikum ŋayiny dhu wiripuny malany students dhiyal. Nhakun Darwin. (Grandchild, she was just saying how it will be that this technology will help Yolŋu who are living on country, and will teach other students here, like in Darwin.)
G Yo… Yes.
0:10:15
M Okay ŋama’ wiripu ŋayi djäl, ŋayi dhu marŋgithirr ga märrpuy, nhä dhuwal märr? Ga nhaliy ŋuli yolŋu ŋunhi märryu dälkunhamirri? Ga nhaltjan dhu ga napurr balanday mala guŋga’yun yolŋuny ŋunhiŋuwurru djämakurru ŋunhi walal ga märryu muka wäŋay ga marŋgikuma wiripuwurrnha.. (Okay mother, she also wants, to learn about märr, what is märr? And how does märr make Yolŋu strong? And how can we balanda help Yolŋu in their work using the märr of the land to teach others?)
G Ma. Now, you want me to go on that? Or not now.
M No, not now. Yän nhe dhu ga guyaŋa ga ŋunhi walal dhu dhuwalawurr buna ŋula nhe dhu dhiyaŋ bala lakaram wo yän nhe dhu yalala muka nhawi galkun yalalaŋuw. (Just think about it, and these people will come sometime, you can either say something about it now, or you can wait until later)
G Yo, Meinmuk, okay.
M So do you want to say anything about that now? or do you want to leave it for later?
G Ga leave it, yow.
M Okay. All right, thanks for that Helen. Now, I hope that Leigh is going to be able to say a little bit about her thoughts about what’s going on. Are you happy to do that Leigh?
L I am very happy to do that. I’ve also been reading the website which has evolved wonderfully, it looks really good, and I have a lot of questions about different, I guess you could say the back and forth. I’m very eager to explore the question of reciprocity in our discussions. In other words, my land and my surrounds and relationships to, is that a relevant way to go forward with the dialogue, and I feel it’s important but I don’t want it to get in the way either. But I feel it’s like talking from the heart about what I really do and where I live and things like that are really important. So that’s one question in constructing the way that we talk to each other. And then the other one is, I guess my take would be in a way, this great concept that I can’t pronounce, of coming together and recognising difference, and the way that that’s connected to your group or your land. I feel like that’s a great teaching to bring to the world and that part of what I really want to try to do is to make that way of knowing known. And I don’t know how much it can be done over the, via computer and other kinds of electronic mediation but if we can do it it would be great, I think. So those are my two concerns.
M Okay. I think certainly we can look forward to talking to each other face to face about some of those ideas if you can make it to Darwin in July and I think we need and will be able to start experimenting with different ways that we can start talking to each other about those ideas, through the computer, in the meantime. So do you think, does anybody want to make some comments about what Leigh had to say or shall we leave it there and move on to ask Geoff and Paul?
L Maybe we should leave it because I feel like what I said also overlaps with Helen so just a suggestion, if we heard all of those and then kind of crunched them together.
0:14:45
H But I think your second issue that you were interested in, the idea of, you said you couldn’t pronounce the word. Would you like to have a go at pronouncing the word?
L Sure. Say it to me and I’ll try it.
M Which one was it. Garma?
H Garma.
L Uh-huh. Garma?
H Garma.
M Okay ŋama’! Ŋäma nhe ga? (Okay mum, Can you hear me?)
G Yow, yes.
M Yeah, okay. Leigh is talking about garma, the story of garma and people coming together in Yolŋu buŋgulkurru, (through ceremonies) about how coming together, in the garma context helps us understand about knowledge and place and teaching and history. That’s what Leigh is asking about. We can talk about that now or we could talk about it later when we’ve been thinking about it a bit more.
T Trevor here. I was just wondering whether everyone had an opportunity to have a bit of a chat first and then see how much time we’ve got left.
M Okay. Manymak ŋama’ Manymak? (Is that okay mother?)
G Yow, yow.
M Okay, let’s talk to Paul. Are you there Paul?
P Yes I’m here.
M Okay. Have you got some thoughts for us, that we can get Trevor to record and then we’ll transcribe them and we’ll have a look at them when they’re down in the text form.
P Right. Well, the thing that intrigues me particularly, I mean I’m very interested in the issues that both Leigh and Helen are raising about the power of place and land, but I’m always interested as well in the temporalities and the questions of time and its temporal embeddings. And so this is following up on some of the things we talked about when we met in Geoff’s office back in November, but I’m intrigued by how it is that specific moments of communication and interaction, particular comings together that might be supported by technology, are linked into pasts and futures and how they all come together to form some whole, and how that gets understood from different kinds of perspectives. And the particular aspect there that I think is intriguing for me about this project is of course, what part of the context is tertiary education, and it’s done with respect to university schedules and the way that universities are structured and the way that ?temporalities? of tertiary education are structured. And so I’m wondering how we will negotiate the relationship between the kinds of temporal patterns that are associated with teaching in a university system and I think very different kinds of temporalities, or I suspect, very different kinds of temporalities of teaching and connection that characterise the learning that would be going on, on country. So that’s what really intrigues me, is how these moments of coming together, moments of interaction, are connected to pasts and futures and might be understood very differently by the different groups of people who are interacting here.
L Yes.
M Okay, thanks for that Paul. I think we’ll have some interesting work to do there on time and Yolŋu understandings of history and how they can relate to the work that we’re doing at the university. Are you still there, John?
J Yep.
M How are you going?
J Good. I’ve just been checking every now and again. I thought Yiŋiya may have been here this morning to join in.
0:19:55
M Right. Okay, well let us know if he comes in. Okay. Are you there, Geoff?
G Yes I am, although I’ve got some difficulties with the connection. I’m only picking up about 30% of what people are saying so I’m really scrambling. It’s probably a problem at my end because you all seem to be speaking quite fluently. I assume you’re not chopping off every two seconds.
L No, I have it too. It could be, I had it with Paul.
M Well, Geoff, I can hear you perfectly well. Can you, Trevor?
T Yeah, I can hear Geoff perfectly well.
G I’m afraid I was unable to do my homework for today. Leigh and I have just announced that we’re leaving Santa Clara University and we’re going to the University of Pittsburgh in the fall and I’ve just been dealing all week with meeting with the faculty and with my administration about what my leaving Santa Clara means so you know, I’d like to kibbitz on this call and do what use that I can but I’ve got no new comments on the website unfortunately, and I apologise for that.
M Okay, congratulations on your new job.
G Thank you.
M Are you still hoping to be able to come in July?
G Sorry, am I still hoping?
M Are you still hoping to be able to come to Darwin in July?
L Yes.
M And you arrive on 20th July?
L We were thinking of coming maybe a little bit earlier just to get rid of the jetlag, like the 18th or something like that.
M And able to stay for around a week?
L At least. We were thinking two weeks actually. But if it’s shorter than that, that’s okay too.
M How about you Paul?
P Yes, I’m definitely still planning to come out in July. I’m holding the second half of July open to make sure that nothing else.
G No, we’re absolutely planning to come in July. Leigh and I will leave on I think it’s the 18th, Leigh, so we have a couple of days to really acclimatise before we start working, but we’ll be there from 18th to the 28th.
M Great. Okay, Gotha are you still there?
L Hello?
M Gotha, ŋäma ga? (Can you hear?)
G Yeah, listening.
M Are you still thinking about going to Scotland in July?
G Still waiting. Haven’t heard the second news.
M When these people come to visit us in Darwin we hope that we can go maybe to Gäwa, maybe to Marpuru or maybe … … Helen and Trevor and I will just start making some plans and talking to people about what we might do. But I think what we want is to visit some Yolŋu community for maybe a day or two, and then all come together in Darwin and have some meetings, like consultancy meetings and conference meetings, people talking in small groups. So we’ll talk to you and to other people about how they would like to be involved with that.
L Great. I do have one suggestion which I’ll send just to the group, and I’ve got a person who you might be interested in.
M Good. Helen’s off to Norway this afternoon. When she gets back we’ll have a talk about how to involve people and I’ll send some feedback from this conversation and we’ll ask people about who would like to be involved and how we’d like to structure it. Does that sound okay for everybody?
G,P,L Yes. Yes. Yeah, that sounds really good.
0:25:00
M Great. Has anybody been thinking about submitting some ideas to the blog?
L Well, I just have started to think about that, yeah, I haven’t had time.
M Okay, when we get the transcripts from today’s meeting and people can have a think about what they’ve said, and think about, have a look at what Gotha has said in her talk that she gave to us at the university, then people might be able to start making some notes or some blog entries. I’ve got some things to talk about from when I’ve been in Sydney last week talking about Yolŋu intellectual property, and putting paintings and stories on the website, and we’ll have more to talk about in terms of what we might do for our conference in Darwin.
L Great.
P And I do remember, Michael, that I did promise you some things for the blog when we were both in Southern California so the guilt is growing and soon I will send you something, I promise.
M Right, do you have a time between Santa Clara and Pittsburgh when you’re able to relax or do you have to just get right into it again?
L We’re still working on that question. We’ll see but thanks for asking. There’s a lot about when the house closes, we bought a house and all that sort of thing.
M Okay, let’s move on. Trevor said he might try to help us have a look at a bit of screen sharing software just to see if it works and to show you what we’ve been looking at. Before we do that, just in case people need to get going, let’s see if we can try to have…
L I’m losing you in terms of sound, I’m sorry.
M In a moment Trevor will try and show us some screen sharing software. If we lose you we’ll look forward to seeing you again and I will email everybody about the chance of having another meeting like this in maybe a month’s time. Does that sound okay?
P Yes, that sounds good to me.
L I’m just sorry, I’m just not getting the sound. I’m sorry.
H Can there be another meeting in a month, over the phone.
L Great. That would be wonderful.
H Gotha?
L I don’t know where Geoff went. He seems to have vanished.
M Okay, well, the assemblage has held together for longer than I expected it to so we’re doing okay. Are you still there Trevor?
T Yeah, I’m here.
M Are you happy to try to show us something on our screens?
T Yeah. What I was going to do is invite people to have a look at my screen through a software called Gitma. What I will do is I will invite you and it should send a message to you via the chat window in Skype and then you just need to click on that and your browser will open up, and I guess we’ll have to see how well it works. So I’ll send that invite right now.
L Great.
M Thank you, are you there John?
J Yes.
M Are you there, Gotha? Ŋama’
T Has anybody seen the invitation yet?
M Yeah, I’ve got it.
L Yeah, it’s great.
P I’m just logging into it just now, it’s asking me for a name and address.
M Are you there John?
J Yeah, I have received the invitation and am opening it up.
M Are you there Gotha?
G Yo.
M Can you see anything on your computer?
G No.
L I’m getting it now.
P Mine says waiting for host acceptance.
T Yeah, I’ve just clicked it. So Paul’s logged on now.
M So I just put MC and my email address?
T Yeah.
M Okay.
T So I’m sharing my desktop screen and I think Paul is the only one who’s clicked the link so far that I’ve successfully connected to.
P It’s opened up, it’s just loading.
T What you should see is my skype conference call.
(ringing sound).
L Hi Geoff?
G Hi.
L Welcome back.
(sound of John’s answering machine) Please leave a name, message and a number, and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can).
G I’m back up and I can hear you.
M We got a phone message. Trevor, Helen’s phone’s gone off.
T Okay. There’s two other people have joined in, Michael and Leigh.
L Oh, neat!
M Okay, and Helen’s with me on the same computer. We’ll put her phone down and wait to hear a call. Is that okay?
L Sure.
T Okay, I’ll call her again. Somehow we’ve got two conference calls running at the same time.
G That could have been what was caused the difficulty I was having because it was getting incredibly chopped up.
L Yeah. Now I can hear fine.
M Can you hear, Geoff?
G Yeah, I can hear just fine. Paul, how are you?
P I can hear you Geoff much better than I could before and I’ve been able to hear everyone else well too.
G That’s great.
L Oh yeah, that’s great.
T That’s what you were saying before, Paul, but I guess that’s pretty normal so.
M Are you still there, trevor?
T Yeah, I’m still here.
L I’ve even got my picture up, hey.
M Are you there, John?
T John’s connected by his phone but he’s not.
L Not visually.
M Are you there, Gotha?
G Yo.
M Can you see your computer?
G Yes, I can see Trevor’s photo. Ga Helen.
M Did you get a black screen inviting you to join our screen sharing?
G Oh, I got cut off before and it came back again.
M Trevor, can you send Gotha another invitation? (Oh I’ve put the call on hold!)
T Okay, I will.
G Close this?
T We’ve actually started a new conference call of which Geoffrey’s the host and it seems that the audio from the US seems to be working much better.
L Yeah. I don’t know how that happened but it’s certainly working fine.
G Yeah, I hosted by accident, I called the group and I thought that was the way of getting in.
T Yeah, it seems to work well. (phone ringing). It’s Trevor here. Can Paul, Michael and Leigh see my desktop, yeah?
P & L Yes.
M I can see the map of Australia. Okay, yep, so that’s your.
T Yeah, what I thought I would do is to zoom in on to where Gotha is living.
M Yeah. See if we can get Gotha connected.
T Yeah, I am.
L I’m not able to zoom because I have these little chat boxes that are partly obscuring the map.
M That’s because you’re looking at Trevor’s screen, Leigh
T …and you can’t…
L Ahah! Okay
M So you can’t do anything with it, so this is an example of how people could teach from country.
L Gotcha!
M They have their screen on their computer and the students are like you and me and Helen and Geoff and Paul and Gotha and John, we are listening to them telling the story about Australia or about their life.
L gotcha!
M So this is Trevor’s desktop. He could have a video of himself which he might show us using one of the softwares that he’s got there for video. But this is basically what we’ve tried, we’ve looked at a whole lot of different software solutions and you can see all the ones that Trevor’s looked at on the website, and a matrix that he’s made there. Skype seems to work well. Unfortunately our university has banned it for reasons that seem to be both political…
MV You have exceeded the recording limit. Thank you. To review this message press 6, to discard your message and re-record it, press 4, to send you message press 5, for urgent delivery, press 7, to leave a number where you can be reached, press 8…
0:36:37
M Right, I don’t know what that is but it sounds like Australia to me.
MV You have exceeded the recording limit. Thank you. To review this message or re-record it, press 4, to send you message press 5, for urgent delivery, press 7, to leave a number where you can be reached, press 8,
T Where’s … ? Okay Sorry about that, I don’t know where.
MV You have exceeded the recording limit. To review this message press 6, to discard your message and re-record it, press 4, to send you message press 5, for urgent delivery, press 7, to leave a number where you can be reached, press 8…
T I’m not sure which program that’s coming from.
M Trevor It’s…
MV Thankyou for calling.
M … no good us trying to call John, is it? 3720
T Yeah, I’m working on that.
M Yeah
T Yow, John, now where’s my contact list?
M Are you still there, Leigh?
L I’m still here.
M And Paul?
P I’m still here.
M All right. Thank you for your forbearance. This has worked a lot better than I expected. If you’ve got time we’ll just keep working on it. Helen and I are sitting here and we’re looking at Trevor’s screen so we can see what he’s now got an Audio Hijack Crow software up that he’s trying to use I think to get back to …um
P (very distorted voice) That should be (muffled … to record all the (muffled … the project does.
T Okay, so I’ve zoomed in north-east Arnhem Land. Can people see the map with all the little markers on it?
L No.
P (muffled) It’s … window.
T Okay, Is there a refresh button on the top left hand corner of your screen of the screen share?
P Oh yeah.
L Perfect.
M Okay whoopsadaisy, Of your screen Trevor?
T No, your screen viewer.
L Yeah, I just did that and it helped a lot.
P Same for me.
M Yeah, refreshing Yugma.
L Yeah. Now I can see the string of places there.
M Ŋama’ (mother)
G Nhä (what?)
M Can you see.
G Yo, yo.
M Can you see what we’re doing? Nhäma nhe ga ŋunhi nhä napurr ga nhäma? (Can you see what we can see?)
G Bäyŋu.
M It didn’t work for you. Bäydhi, bäy-lakaram. ( Don’t worry, forgive us.)
T I’ve invited Gotha again.
M Bulu ŋayi dhiyaŋ Trevay nhunany inviting balanyaraw. (Trevor has invited you again for that thing)
G Yo. It’s open but baynu (no) pictures.
M Is there a…
G This is Geoff. Can someone give me the session ID on Yugma. I had to move to a different browser.
L I’ll send it to you.
M Trevor, can you tell Gotha how to tune into her Yugma?
T Yeah, I’ve sent her an invitation. I’ll send it again.
M Yeah, she’s received it, she’s got it.
G It’s open.
T Just what can you see, Gotha?
G Um, nhawi picture on the right hand view a message. … Yo, I’ve got your invitation nhawi session here.
T Click on the link that’s got like an address for a website on it. Is there something you can click on?
G ‘Please click’.
T Yow.
G Ma’.
T And then when your browser opens there’ll be three little boxes you need to fill in, your name I think and email address.
G It’s still opening.
(beeping noise.)
T Okay, we’ve lost the conference. Is anyone there?
P I’m still here. Everything was on hold for a minute then you came back.
(beeping noise.)
J John here again.
T Okay, John, we lost one conference call and I’m starting another one.
H Hello, we’re back again.
T We’re slowly getting there.
H Hello.
T Hello
M I’m still here.
H So I’m back on the landline and Michael’s on the computer.
M And Leigh’s gone.
T Oh, Leigh’s there. She’s on hold somehow. Okay, my Skype quit on one of the computers.
P She actually seems to be trying to call in again using the mechanism (muffle) last time. …(muffle)
L The window keeps disappearing.
M Are you there John?
J I’m here.
M Okay, how about you Gotha? Ŋama’?
J Repeat that.
(beeping noise.)
T Okay, we seem to be having a few problems. For anybody who’s still watching the screen show I’ve zoomed in now at Elcho Island.
M Okay, so we need to keep clicking ‘refresh’ do we?
T It will do it now and again automatically.
M Okay, Can you see anything John?
J It hasn’t started to change. I can see the homeland map, the map of the homelands but it hasn’t started to zoom in yet.
T Yo Gotha.
J Yo Gutharra
G Yo Märi.
J Gutharra, can you see the map of the homelands in Arnhem?
G Bäyŋu.
J Did you get a message from Trevor before with some red writing on it?
G Ŋi (yes)
J If you click on the red writing you may be able to see Trevor’s computer.
G I’ve seen his nhawi (um) website and I clicked. It says ‘join as a viewer only’, ga (and) your name and email. Is that the one?
T Yo yo, that’s the one.
M Yes so what’s the name she should put in, Trevor?
J So your name is… You have to write in your name, and then put in your email address and your name is Guthadjaka.
G Nha? (what).
(ringing sound)
M In the name put Gotha. Ŋani John? (Is that correct John?)
J Guthadjaka.
G Yow
(ringing)
G This is Geoff, I’m back on now.
M Okay Geoff, we’re just trying to get Gotha set up with the.
G And email.
M Put your email in the bottom one. Gotha at.
H Yeah, I’m here, I moved to another room. I realised that what Michael was saying was coming through two telephones so.
L Aha! This is really interesting to try to figure all this out.
H It’s all right, I’ve moved to the other end of the house.
G Yow.
M Okay, Ŋama’, what can you see?
G Just nhawi (um) click, join.
J Yes
0:47:07
T The map you can see on the screen once it’s refreshed now, we’ve zoomed right into north east Arnhem Land of the Northern Territory and there’s Elcho Island with a few of the place names with yellow pins on them. John are you there?
J I’m here, I’m wondering how I can refresh. I don’t seem to have a refresh.
T In your …
J That’s right, I’ll go to my browser again.
T Yeah, it will be, the Yogma thing that loads up that has a refresh button in the top left hand corner.
M John, can you see Trevor’s screen.
J I could see it. When I clicked ‘refresh’ it disappeared but maybe it’s reloading.
G Mmmm
L What’s the difference between the blue pointers and the pushpins and the yellow pointers?
T Ah, The pushpins are places, small communities that are registered with the Northern Territory government.
L And the blue ones?
T I can’t see any blue ones on my screen.
L Yeah, I’ve got a couple of blue ones here.
P Yeah, I don’t think I’m zoomed in as, and there are still a couple of blue.
T Okay, so try the refresh button because I’ve zoomed right in.
P Yeah, I keep hitting refresh but it still keeps showing me the, actually the (muffle) … screen, half way through a zoom to the bottom, (muffle) … maps …(muffle) and I actually(muffle) … the maps.
L Yeah, right.
P So it’s just not quite up to date, and so I’m seeing some yellow pushpins, yellow pointer tags, blue pointer tags and also a bunch of just what look like yellow circles.
T Yeah. This map is a work in progress and we thought the pins and the blue markers were a little bit too big and I’ve slowly been turning all the blue and yellow pushpins into small yellow dots so that the map is more visible.
L Aha, that makes sense.
P Since I’m seeing it as zoomed in I think as you are trying to show. Can you tell us what part is Elcho Island?
T Elcho is in the top right hand corner. There are some islands that sort of spread up.
P So that’s sort of like, that string that sort of points out towards the north east?
T That’s right, yep, and there’s a string of islands with a lot of communities on there. There’s a largish town called Galiwin’ku and then to the north of that, Elcho Island, that’s where Gäwa is where Guthadjaka is calling from via satellite, she’s connected to us by satellite from there.
L Right.
M So Paul.
P Yes.
M You can see the long string of islands but no pins on them?
P Yes.
L Uh huh
M That’s the Wessell Islands and then they come down to the bottom and you can’t actually tell but there’s another very large island with lots of little yellow pins on it.
P Okay.
M The topmost of all those pins is Gäwa, that’s where Gotha is, and probably the bottommost of the cluster of pins is where the Galiwin’ku community is, and from the Galiwinku community to Gäwa it’s about what, 40 km, John?
J Yeah, about 60 km.
G 60.
M Right. Can you zoom in further…
L Thanks, that’s (put us in) the scale.
M … Trevor?
T Sorry, what’s that?
M Can we zoom in really close?
T Yeah, now, is Gawa to the north east of Galiwin’ku?
M Yes, I think it’s the topmost pin of the whole lot do you reckon John?
T Yeah, Gäwa, okay.
J Repeat that, Michael.
M Can you see Trevor’s desktop, John?
H Why don’t you just wave from the map?
J The voices now are quite distorted.
T Okay, I’ve refreshed the map and zoomed right in.
M Can you hear me, John?
J I can hear you but sometimes you’re cutting out, Michael. The quality is sometimes just is quite off.
M And can you see Trevor’s desktop?
J I could see the map but when I went to refresh on my Safari… here it is coming up again now.
P And I can see the zoomed in version now, Trevor, I can see a map with labels for Elcho Island and Galiwinku.
L Yeah, me too.
P But I still actually have two zoom artifacts, I have two other bands of the same image at different scales, so sort of a very fractual experience.
L All the way around.
T More bandwidth is what we need.
P Yes.
M Gutharra, can you see the map?
G I hate to do this but I have another appointment now at 4.30 my time, so I’m going to have to hang up in a second and I’ll catch up on the transcripts and talking with Leigh tonight when I get back.
0:53:17
M Is that you, Geoff?
G That’s me, Geoff, yeah.
M Thank you very much. You’re the only, well, I can actually see your face on the computer. Thank you for that and yeah, this is our first trial and we will use this as a way of working out what works and what doesn’t work, so thanks very much and good luck with your next meeting.
L Bye bye.
G Bye bye and look, thanks so much and I think this actually is a fantastic first trial of the technology.
L I agree
G I’ve been through way way worse. So I’m sure we can.
L We’ll figure it out together. Bye Geoff.
G Bye.
M Okay, has everybody else had enough?
L Yeah, I think without being able to operate it, but it’s very helpful and it’s very helpful visually.
T This screen viewer application at the moment you can only view. We could ask people to download a small bit of software and install it and then I can give people control over the desktop and you can actually swap desktops around.
L That would be great.
T I guess there’s an issue with some of the, in terms of the connection speed to north east Arnhem Land, getting all of that done and doing it remotely is going to be a challenge.
P Well, I think that one thing that might be useful and I don’t know about the software but it might be easier than full remote access, if we could even just have a pointer that we could move around so that I could point at things on the map or on the screen, and ask you about them.
L Yeah.
P Without having to, (muffle) I mean it would just be easier to do that, and that I think in itself would be a really useful thing.
L That’s right
T Yeah, we used another program called Team Viewer which we could do that with but that required me to get you all to download a small bit of software, and install it, which might be a good idea to do next time.
P Yeah, no, I understand why you want to do something that would be purely browser local, which I think actually has worked really well, but yeah, I’m perfectly happy to install some software.
L Me too.
T The other option of course is whoever’s presenting could send a public chat with a website address and we could all look at the same website address through our own browsers, but then we’re not sure if everyone’s looking at the same thing then.
L Are we ever?
P Yeah, you’d have to do …(muffle) ‘next slide please’. ‘Roll over to the right’.
(Phone ringing).
T Okay, well on my son’s computer, I keep clicking refresh and Yugma’s not refreshing what I’ve got up on my computer.
G Yo, put it here.
T So that’s a bit disappointing.
P Yeah, the refreshing seems to be a little strange. I’ve now got, I’m clearly seeing, I mean the actual viewer window is fine, the map is fine. Of course I can also see it looks like the conference call, the Skype window got moved at some point so there is some kind of curious artifact over there.
L Right. Yeah, mine’s kind of about a third of the way down. It slips into a different granularity.
T Yeah, so it takes minutes really to get the refresh around the globe.
L Gotcha.
T Gotha can you see anything yet on that when you click that link?
M Yeah, we can see the top of a little sign saying Gäwa now.
T Yeah.
G Yeah.
T Slowly, slowly. It’s pretty underwhelming really.
L No, I know what work goes into it. It’s pretty impressive.
J Gutharra, can you see the map of Gäwa and Galiwinku?
G Bayŋu. I didn’t get to that part. I tried.
M Yo. Nhä nhe ga nhäma nhokal screenŋur? (What can you see on you screen?)
L There’s a little person back there, I can hear him.
G Say goodbye-nha daddyw (Say goodbye to Daddy)
L Oh, it’s okay. Bye bye.
G Yo, Daniel, sorry we’re busy, ma.
L It’s not a problem, it’s nice.
T Okay, what do we do next?
J Michael’s gone has he? He’s dropped out.
M No, Helen and I am listening to the same phone. I think we’ve had a good try at this. I don’t want to keep people for too long. Has anybody got some suggestions about what we can do next time or where we should take this? I will get a transcription of what we’ve talked about today?
L Great.